Here's the most critical part of Iran's nuclear program that nobody is talking about

Missiles are displayed
during 'Sacred Defense Week,' to commemorate the 1980-88
Iran-Iraq war. Photo taken on Sept. 28, 2014 at a park in
northern Tehran.Atta Kenare/AFP/Getty
Images

According to the latest reports stemming from the P5+1 talks,
Iran is now insisting that UN sanctions on its ballistic
missile program be lifted as part of a long-term nuclear
accord.

In addition to further complicating already fraught
negotiations, this development highlights the importance Tehran
attaches to its missile arsenal, as well as the need to answer
unresolved questions about possible links between its missile
and nuclear programs.

Iran is believed to have the largest strategic missile force in
the Middle East, producing short- and medium-range ballistic
missiles, a long-range cruise missile, and long-range rockets.
Although all of its missiles are conventionally armed at
present, its medium-range ballistic missiles could deliver a
nuclear weapon if Iran were to build such a device.

Early in the P5+1 negotiations, US officials stated that "every
issue," including the missile program, would be on the table.
In February 2014, however, Undersecretary of State for
Political Affairs Wendy Sherman stated, "If we are successful
in assuring ourselves and the world community that Iran cannot
obtain a nuclear weapon," then that "makes delivery systems ...
almost irrelevant."

Yet many observers remain concerned that personnel and
facilities tied to Iran's missile program were, and may still
be, engaged in work related to possible military dimensions
(PMD) of the nuclear program. These concerns underscore the
need to effectively address the missile issue as part of the UN
Security Council resolution that will backstop the long-term
nuclear accord now being negotiated, if it will not be dealt
with in the accord itself.

Deterrence, warfighting, and propaganda

The Iran-Iraq War convinced Tehran that a strong missile force
is critical to the country's security, and it has given the
highest priority to procuring and developing various types of
missiles and rockets. Missiles played an important role
throughout that war and a decisive role in its denouement.

During the February-April 1988 "War of the Cities," Iraq was
able to hit Tehran with extended-range missiles for the first
time. Iranian morale was devastated: more than a quarter of
Tehran's population fled the city, contributing to the
leadership's decision to end the war.

Since then, missiles have been central to Iran's "way of war,"
which emphasizes the need to avoid or deter conventional
conflict while advancing its anti-status quo agenda via proxy
operations and propaganda activities.

Iran's deterrence triad rests on its ability to (1) threaten
navigation through the Strait of Hormuz, (2) undertake
terrorist attacks on multiple continents, and (3) conduct
long-range strikes, primarily by missiles (or with rockets
owned by proxies such as Hezbollah).

Iranian military
personnel participate in the Velayat-90 war game in unknown
location near the Strait of Hormuz in southern Iran December
30, 2011.REUTERS/Fars News/Hamed
Jafarnejad

Yet the first two options
carry limitations.

Closing the strait would be a last resort because nearly all of
Iran's oil exports go through it and Tehran's ability to wage
terror has atrophied in recent years (as demonstrated by a
series of bungled attacks on Israeli targets in February 2012).
Therefore, Iran's missile force is the backbone of its
strategic deterrent.

Missiles enable Iran to mass fires against civilian population
centers and undermine enemy morale. If their accuracy increases
in the future, they could further stress enemy defenses (as
every incoming missile would have to be intercepted) and enable
Iran to target military facilities and critical infrastructure.

Although terrorist attacks afford a degree of standoff and
deniability, missiles permit a quicker, more flexible response
in a rapidly moving crisis — for example, after an initial
series of preplanned terrorist attacks, Tehran or its proxies
might need weeks to organize follow-on operations. Missile
salvos can also generate greater cumulative effects in a
shorter period than terrorist attacks.

Indeed, missiles are ideally suited to Iran's "resistance
doctrine," which states that achieving victory entails
demoralizing one's enemies by bleeding their civilian
population and denying them success on the battlefield. In this
context, rockets are as important as missiles, since they yield
the same psychological effect on the targeted population.

The manner in which Hezbollah and Hamas used rockets in their
recent wars with Israel provides a useful template for
understanding the role of conventionally armed missiles in
Iran's warfighting doctrine.

Missiles are also Iran's most
potent psychological weapon. They are a central fixture of just
about every regime military parade, frequently dressed with
banners calling for "death to America" and declaring that
"Israel should be wiped off the map."

They are used as symbols of Iran's growing military power and
reach. And as the delivery system of choice for nuclear weapons
states, they are a key element of Iran's nascent doctrine of
nuclear ambiguity and its attempts at "nuclear intimidation
without the bomb."

Finally, while most nuclear weapons states created their
missile forces years after joining the "nuclear club" (due to
the significant R&D challenges involved), Iran will already
have a sophisticated missile force and infrastructure in place
if or when it opts to go that route.

This ensures that a nuclear breakout would produce a dramatic
and rapid transformation in Iran's military stature and
capabilities.

Iran's missle force

Iran has a large, capable missile force, with a likely
inventory of more than 800 short- and medium-range ballistic
missiles.

Nearly all of them can reach US military targets in the Persian
Gulf, and the latter two can reach Israel. These missiles,
which include several subvariants, are believed to be
conventionally armed with unitary high-explosive or submunition
(cluster) warheads.

Additionally, Iran has tested
a two-stage solid-fuel missile, the Sejjil-2, whose range of
over 2,000 km would allow it to target southeastern Europe —
though it is apparently still not operational. In a June 28,
2011, press statement, Tehran claimed that it was capping the
range of its missiles at 2,000 km (sufficient to reach Israel
but not Western Europe), implicitly eschewing the development
of intercontinental ballistic missiles in a presumed bid to
deflect US and European concerns.

Yet its Safir launch vehicle, which has put four satellites
into orbit since 2009, could provide the experience and knowhow
needed to build an ICBM. (According to a May 2010 report by the
International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Safir
struggled to put a very small satellite into low-earth orbit
and has probably reached the outer limits of its performance
envelope, so it could not serve as an ICBM itself.) In 2010,
Iran displayed a mockup of a larger two-stage satellite launch
vehicle, the Simorgh, which it has not yet flown.

Tehran has also claimed an antiship ballistic missile
capability that it probably intends for potential use against
U.S. aircraft carriers: the Khalij-e Fars and its derivatives,
the Hormuz-1/2, each with a claimed range of 300 km. Yet it is
not clear that these systems are sufficiently accurate or
effective to pose a credible threat to U.S. surface elements in
the Gulf.

In addition, Iran recently unveiled the Soumar land-attack
cruise missile, which is reportedly a reverse-engineered
version of the Russian Raduga Kh-55. It has a claimed range of
2,500-3,000 km, though it may not be operational yet.

The Kh-55 was the Soviet air force's primary nuclear delivery
system.

Iran also fields a very large number of rockets, including the
Noor 122 mm (with a range of 20 km), the Fajr-3 and -5 (45 and
75 km), and the Zelzal-1, -2, and -3 (with claimed ranges of
125 to 400 km). During the Iran-Iraq War, rockets played a
major role in bombarding Iraqi cities along the border, and
they are central to the "way of war" of Iranian proxies and
allies such as Hezbollah and Hamas.

Tehran has built this massive inventory so that it can saturate
and thereby overwhelm enemy missile defenses in any conflict.
It would likely use such tactics whether its missile force
remains conventional or becomes nuclear-armed, since
conventional missiles could serve as decoys that enable nuclear
missiles to penetrate defenses. Numbers would also enable Iran
to achieve cumulative strategic effects on enemy morale and
staying power by conventional means.

To outwork missile
defense systems, Iran would use a high volume of
missiles.AP Photo/Iranian Defense
Ministry

Finally, many of Iran's
missiles are mounted on mobile launchers, and a growing number
are based in silo fields located mainly in the northwest and
toward the frontier with Iraq.

This mix of launch options is
likely intended to impede preemptive enemy targeting of its
missile force. The resources invested in this effort are
unprecedented for a conventionally armed force, which indicates
that at least some of these missiles would likely be nuclear
armed if Iran eventually goes that route.

Nuclear connections

In the
annex of a November 8, 2011, report regarding the nuclear
program's possible military dimensions, the International
Atomic Energy Agency said it possessed credible information and
documents connecting Iran's missile and nuclear programs. These
indicated that, prior to the end of 2003, Iran had:

Some experts (including Uzi Rubin and Michael Elleman) believe
that Iran may have deployed the triconic RV to enhance the
stability and thus the accuracy of its conventional warheads,
and perhaps to achieve higher terminal velocities that could
reduce reaction time for missile defenses.

But if Iran were able to build a miniaturized nuclear device,
its experience in designing, testing, and operating missiles
with triconic RVs could expedite deployment of this weapon.
Indeed, David Albright claimed in his 2010
book Peddling Peril that members of the A.
Q. Khan nuclear smuggling network possessed plans for smaller,
more advanced nuclear weapon designs that might have found
their way to Iran, though most experts doubt the regime's
ability to build such a compact device at this time.

Could Iran have smuggled
in a nuclear bomb?Desmond
Boylan/Reuters

These reports underscore why
Washington and its partners must insist that Tehran respond to
the IAEA's questions about past engineering studies, design
work, tests, and other elements of the PMD file prior to the
lifting of sanctions.

They also highlight the need
for a UN Security Council resolution (as called for in the
Lausanne parameters) that would impose limitations on Iran's
missile R&D work and threaten real consequences for those
who assist Iran's missile program.

Failure to do so would signal tacit acceptance of activities
that could enable Iran to deploy its first nuclear weapon atop
a medium-range missile — an achievement that took most nuclear
weapons states, including the United States and Soviet Union,
about a decade to accomplish.

This development would in turn magnify the destabilizing impact
of an Iranian breakout, while incentivizing other regional
states to either take preventive action or move toward nuclear
capabilities of their own before Iran crosses that threshold.